Home shoppers across western Washington have more options than they've seen in years, but far fewer of them are actually buying. The Northwest Multiple Listing Service counted 23,519 active listings across its 27-county service area at the end of October, up 25.2% from a year earlier, even as closed sales and pending contracts both dropped sharply and the median sale price slipped to $620,000.
According to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, that 23,519 figure compares to 18,791 active listings at the same point in October 2025. Windermere Real Estate, in its own read of the same month, described the count differently, putting active listings at nearly 20,000, or roughly 25% above last October — a reminder that even within the same data set, tallies can vary depending on how and when they're pulled. Either way, the direction is the same: there are a lot more homes sitting on the market than there were a year ago.
What's driving the pileup isn't a surge of new sellers. NWMLS brokers added 7,991 new listings in October, the exact same number as October 2025. Instead, the agency pointed to a slowdown on the buying side: just 5,541 residential and condo units went under contract last month, a 17.8% decline from a year earlier, while closed sales fell 14.3% to 5,332 transactions. “The growth in inventory is coming from slower sales rather than an increase in homes coming to market,” the listing service said in its report.
Months of Inventory Rise 46% in a Year
That combination of flat new supply and falling demand has pushed the market's months-of-inventory measure — the time it would take to sell everything currently listed at the current sales pace — to 4.41 months in October, up from 3.02 months a year earlier. The shift was even more pronounced in September, when NWMLS reported months of inventory hit 4.44, which it called the highest level since February 2014, alongside 24,965 active listings, a 24.5% year-over-year jump described as the highest selection of homes since September 2014.
Pricing has started to soften alongside the slowdown. The October median sale price for residential homes and condos was $620,000, down 3.1% from October 2025, per NWMLS figures. Inventory grew year over year in 26 of the service area's 27 counties, with the sharpest increases concentrated in Walla Walla (+52.3%), Douglas (+42.3%), Snohomish (+41.7%), Wahkiakum (+33.3%) and King (+32.8%) counties.
Greater Seattle Sees an Even Bigger Swing
The imbalance is especially stark in the core Puget Sound counties. Windermere Real Estate reported that the four-county greater Seattle area ended October with 33% more active listings than a year earlier, alongside 15% fewer closed sales compared to October 2025. The brokerage's own read of the slowdown pointed to buyer hesitation tied to borrowing costs, saying buyers “seemingly decided to wait out the sudden run-up in mortgage rates well above 7%.”
That pattern lines up with what was happening in September, when condo sales cooled faster than single-family homes: condo pending sales fell 22.7% and closed sales fell 19.1%, compared with declines of 13.9% and 7.3% for single-family homes, the listing service's report found. Inventory growth was also uneven geographically that month, with King, Snohomish and Pierce counties seeing a 31.2% jump to 14,294 active listings, compared with a 16.5% increase across the rest of the NWMLS footprint.
A Trend Reaching Beyond Washington
The Puget Sound region isn't alone in watching listings pile up while buyers sit on their hands. CNBC reported that nationwide active inventory reached 183,500 homes in October, up 7.4% year over year according to Realtor.com, even as new listings nationally fell 7.5% from a year earlier. The outlet noted active listings have climbed every month since February, despite that drop in fresh supply.
Yet unlike in western Washington, where median prices have already started to retreat, most sellers elsewhere are still holding firm. CNBC's report found just over 20% of sellers cut prices in October, roughly matching the share seen in both September and October of the prior year. Zillow data cited in the same report showed newly pending home sales down 16.8% year over year nationally — a smaller national pullback than the drop NWMLS recorded in its own service area, where contracts fell 17.8% over the same stretch. The Puget Sound Business Journal also reported on the October inventory figures.
